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TSM Episode 430: Assorted Accessories

Lusipurr and SiliconNooB discuss various accessories for classic gaming consoles, ranging from the useful (NES Advantage), to the obscure (Konami LaserScope), to the truly horrendous (NES Power Glove).

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8 comments on “TSM Episode 430: Assorted Accessories”

So, of course I really want to hear the FFVI radio play, more than anything. But it begs some more questions. Like, should I be imagining the Biggs and Wedge extended escapade to be anything like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? Will Bup play Mog? And what about the minor moogles – will Kupek have a “Kupo!” at least? Whatever it is, this thing must come full circle.

The new stretch goal sounds pretty entertaining. Will this be a rewrite to completion, or just from the beginning to Figaro? I imagine a movie poster parody of Escape from New York (Narshe). Definitely will be throwing a donation this year.

@Dancing Matt: I don’t believe that I had seen the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead yet, but I may have done. It did come out in 1990 after all. In any case, I do not recall it informing the parts I wrote for Biggs and Wedge, which were more comedic (in the form of bad puns and one-liners) than ironic.

For you I will include at least one (1) minor moogle, should it come to pass.

@Fumunshu: Only up to Figaro. An Escape from Narshe! attitude to the whole gives me some ideas that I had not considered. Thanks for the suggestion!

My uncle and I would play nes together all the time when I would go to his place, he bought the gigantic joystick controller and called himself the Nintendo master. I never was able to effectively use that controller when I was a kid, I just stuck to the regular stuff. Also, my dad had rented one of those piece of crap virtual boys, imagine if that thing took off, everybody would have needed eyeglasses or contacts, way too much red lines.

@Clinton: See, you had a cool game-loving uncle. I think everyone has a ‘cool uncle’.

Honestly, I never did well with the NES Advantage either. For people who played a lot of arcade-style games (esp. fighting games), it was excellent. But for platformers and RPGs, it was useless or worse than useless.

I had a Virtual Boy (six of them, in fact). Mario Clash was excellent, as were Mario Tennis (really!) and Red Alarm. Wario Land was okay, but the rest of it was pretty ordinary.

I think I need to play Descent on stream again, because one of the reasons I like Red Alarm was because of its similarities to that.

That PlayStation wasn’t even the most expensive gift that birthday. I also got a mountain bike that was almost $400. Pluses of being an only child to rich parents. (They did require me to get rid of my Genesis in order to keep both the PlayStation and Saturn though.)

On the idea of favorite peripherals, I do have a few:

The first was the Genesis’ 6-Button Arcade Stick. This was MUST have back then, since a good number of my Genesis library was arcade games. (I have the feeling if I was old enough to own an NES back in the 80s, I would’ve used the NES Advantage quite a bit as well.) And frankly, the arcade stick was way better for Eternal Champions than the Activator. (And no, I didn’t own the Activator)
The next up was the Sega Saturn Twin Sticks, which although only being usable for 2 games (MechWarrior 2 and Virtual-On) was an excellent accessory.
Being able to play Virtual-On at home just like the arcade was excellent.
The PlayStation ASCII stick was pretty awesome as well, just from it’s sheer size compared to the console itself. It is also to this day, the only PlayStation arcade stick that had the real arcade feel in the joystick and buttons. A must have for Street Fighter Alpha 2.
My all time favorite arcade stick however was the Saturn’s Virtua Stick Pro. It was a two-player arcade stick that had those authentic Sega arcade joysticks and buttons in mid 90s. It was also massive, look it up if you’ve never seen it.

Hope these discussion topics continue, it was cool hearing everyone’s first Final Fantasy memories last week and the accessories this week. It’s a shame most of our happier gaming moments are lost to time, but I guess that’s just a sign of the times.